The BGA (Ball Grid Array) integrated circuit package allows an integrated circuit package to be made very small in size while nevertheless providing highly integrated functionality from a single integrated circuit package. By the BGA technology, a substrate is used as the chip carrier for the mounting of at least one integrated circuit chip, and an encapsulating body is then formed to encapsulate the integrated circuit chip. The encapsulating body is typically formed through the use of an encapsulating mold including an upper mold and an opposing lower mold.
In the fabrication of an encapsulating body for a BGA integrated circuit an integrated circuit chip mounted on a substrate. During the molding process, the semi-finished package configuration of the integrated circuit chip and the substrate is clamped between an upper mold cap and a lower mold chase. The upper mold cap is formed with an encapsulating-body cavity. When the upper mold cap and the lower mold chase are combined, an encapsulating material such as epoxy resin is filled into the encapsulating-body cavity to thereby form an encapsulating body therein.
In the foregoing integrated circuit package configuration, since the substrate would have a thickness deviation of +/−0.05 mm due to imprecision in fabrication, it would lead to the following problems during the molding process when the upper mold cap and the lower mold chase are combined to clamp the substrate.
First, when the substrate is being clamped forcibly by the two mold halves, the thicker part thereof would be unduly pressed, thus resulting in the undesired forming of micro-cracks in the solder mask coated over the substrate, which would adversely affect the reliability of the internal circuitry of the resulted integrated circuit package.
Second, if the clamping force is reduced to prevent the above-mentioned problem, it would nevertheless allow a gap to be left between the bottom surface of the upper mold cap and the top surface of the thinner part of the substrate, which would allow the flowing resin used in the molding process to flow through this gap, thus undesirably resulting in a mold contamination, commonly known as “flash”, over the top surface of the substrate. Although the flash can be later cleaned away, it would increase the overall manufacture cost and degrade the quality of the manufactured package.
In the assembly of package-on-package systems these problems are further exaggerated. If too much pressure is exerted by the upper mold cap, the stack may be damaged. Additionally any tolerance in the thickness of the stack may result in flash covering or partly covering electrical contacts used for electrically connecting additional integrated circuit packages. Many efforts have been made to limit or eliminate the occurrence of flash in the packaging of integrated circuits, but none have been completely successful in eliminating this manufacturing yield problem.
Thus, a need still remains for package stacking system with mold contamination prevention. In view of the demand for high volume and high quality integrated circuit systems, it is increasingly critical that answers be found to these problems. In view of the ever-increasing commercial competitive pressures, along with growing consumer expectations and the diminishing opportunities for meaningful product differentiation in the marketplace, it is critical that answers be found for these problems. Additionally, the need to save costs, improve efficiencies and performance, and meet competitive pressures, adds an even greater urgency to the critical necessity for finding answers to these problems.
Solutions to these problems have been long sought but prior developments have not taught or suggested any solutions and, thus, solutions to these problems have long eluded those skilled in the art.